
012 046 838 8 



pemnalipe* 



E 458 

.2 

.W42 

Copy 1 



DISCOURSE 



CAUSES FOR THANKSGIVING: 



PREACHED AT 



WATERTOWN, NOV. 30, 1862. 



By JOHN WEISS 



t 




BOSTON: 

WRIGHT & POTTER, PRINTERS, 4 SPRING LANE. 

18 6 2. 



.-■»<5 






DISCOURSE 



CAUSES FOR THANKSGIVING: 



PREACHED AT 



WATERTOWN, NOY. 30, 1862. 



I 
By JOHN WEISS. 



{ 




BOSTON: 

WRIGHT & POTTER, PRINTERS, 4 SPRING LANE. 
18 62. 



DISCOURSE. 



Mark Iv : 28. 
first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. 

The content and thankfulness of New England are committed 
every spring to her soil by the hands of farmers, who find it 
again spreading the color of California gold over their autumn 
fields. And what an alchemist is a farmer, to get that color out 
of land so poor and climate so harsh ; where, what with the 
prices of labor, the expense of implements, of draining, manur- 
ing, keeping of stock and buildings, and a comfortable life 
through a tedious winter, not a great deal of that color finds its 
way into his pocket, however much he may store in his bins 
or send to market. And wherever a plough runs, from the 
Kennebec to the Mississippi, turning fat or meagre soils to the 
sun of a temperate summer, there springs the beautiful thanks- 
giving harvest of New England and of the North. Manufac- 
tures, shoe and leather dealing, all the trades and inventions, 
eat the pumpkins and the corn of the farmer. And the pursuits 
which are closely allied to agriculture, such as the breeding 
of cattle and the growing of wool, help the farmer to create 
and feed a North. Lawrence and Lowell can consume all the 
cotton they get, when the farmer of the East and West dumps 
his potatoes at the factory door. When the great arm of the 
engine vibrates, and a million spindles and the hearts of those 
who tend them sing, see how the slender thread goes up from 
the ball, carrying all the crops of the year with it to spin them 
into Wamsutta or Merrimac, or other famous brands. The morn- 
ing tattoo which the Lynn shoemakers beat on their lap-stones 
is the echo of flails in a thousand barns. Genesis says, that the 
Lord God took a little earth to make the first man ; now man 



breathes his own breath of hfe iv.to the earth agam, and it 
TTialces him and svistains him every day. 

Tl re Ts uot much land, even among the rieh nver-bo torn 
a„r Sries of the West, so genial that man has " oMy o Uc 
U A a hoe to make ^U-.'- ^ ";, grille 

our f-7- «-' .°;, I'tf:::; « e hfty-hrst and fifty-seventh 
empire of Russia, lying ueivvei, i .,, „„„ „ ^,,11 

narallels of latitude, comprising about 24., 000,000 acies,so iici 
Cif manured th; first years of culture, the crops oft«ii prove 
Z iv from excessive vegetation. The thickness of this deposit 

^^::S: ^of tirSi, ,_ neither oyi.m >.— 
M Yot it is ill that great temperate plateau of Russia, ca lea 
I'tiJ udustrLl Region," that freedom and -ligion when 
nlanted may be CKpccted to subdue the rankiiess of tl e sol. 
£eteelni and religion coa. and flatter sterility till it fairly 

forgets itself and smiles. , 

In a still autumn morning, when the brown loads have 
drift-heaps of red and yellow leaves, and the air seems to b 
nothin- but a mingling of shine and warmth, what a ude 
t is take up anS down the valleys here, through the north 
pa of Watert'own, where the first farmers of New l.ig and 
sowed their English grass, and across Beaver ^ »; ">™^»h 
the uplands of Waltham, and behind Prospect-^nl , wheie 
he f"™ and wood-lots stretch pleasantly away. Perhaps yon 
ta-u off towards Lexington, and cross the famous turnpik 
Twn which the farmers "fired the first shot ^^'^^'^^ 
t world," when, as minute-men, they top- res^d 1^ 
fields with English blood, and were not chary °f «> ^ "^'^ 
Religion and liberty have grown well ever since, lou ude pas 
«,;f manifest tokens; you pause at their 7™<»--l -l^'/, 

tch vour horse at a farmer's door, and ask the price of Ins 
pottoes and pumpkins which lie there, great heajis 0^ pki^ 
before barns bursting with corn-shucks and Yt'l'^e 1 e 
,i„ews of war and of peace. No ^I'-'P-'^'^^ bd' ^ ^« ^'^ 
fences now, nor UTCgnlar firing up and down the lOad. ine 
IriXt chiiT^ from tl,e door-step a tranquil song, whose buiden 

* Patent Office Report, 1861. Agricultural. 



seems to be that Nature is laying in sunshine, with good hus- 
bandry, for another spring. The children break out of tlie little 
primary school-house, where New England planting is carried 
on too, — boys and girls trained to grow straight and sturdy, to 
handle some day the plough, the loom, or the musket, as the 
country needs. Now they are the finest of all the crops on the 
slopes which they shall one day inherit. What a ride you can 
take through the country lanes, bordered with nothing finer 
than the pendent barberry and the purpling sumach, unless you 
have an eye for the comfort, and thanksgiving, and popular 
Liberty, whose stateliness lines all the road, and stretches far 
away between the hills. 

When a people own the land, and own themselves, and conse- 
quently do not depend upon one product and one employment 
for their means of intelligence and happiness, they are superior 
to bad luck, and know little of the discomforts of a crisis. In 
this respect what a different sight meets the traveller who is 
passing to-day through the cotton districts of Lancashire, 
England, where a population of nearly three millions have 
their welfare entangled in the mill-machinery, and cease to 
hope as the factory chimnies cease to smoke. They are as 
much the slaves of the cotton-plant as the negroes who hoe it 
and gin its blossoms. They belong to a style of civilization 
which thinks little of man, but a great deal of trade ; which 
dooms a man all his life, and his children after him, to make 
the head of a pin, to pick under ground at a stratum of coal, to 
pull and ripple flax, or tend a machine in a mill. Take away 
his pin-head, his pick-axe, or fail to feed his machine with 
cotton, and he is a pauper ; he comes upon the parish for his 
daily support, or has a bowl of soup ladled ovit to him at the 
door of some charity. In Manchester, which has a population 
of 357,604, the pauperism is now 10| per cent., and out-door 
relief is distributed to 16,334 persons at the rate of Is. 4d. per 
head per week — about two shillings of our money. Out of 
eightj^-four cotton mills, twenty-two are stopped, and thirty are 
working short time. But Manchester is comparatively well off. 
The town of Stockport, about six miles from Manchester, has, 
out of a population of 54,681, 18,000 engaged in the factories, 
m good times ; but now there are only 4,000 working on full 



6 



depeud xipon the staple »'''*«' ^"'g ^i,„t ^„ amount of 
people i. Stockport recem rel ef. ButJ ^^^ 

go tramping over the ^oxmtiy to , them 

leavers are -^''^'Tf Itr^ toma Utle company, and 

^P- . '"Tot* ";«od l-inkrg," and few farthings for 
go smgmg glees wiin ' j ^ jo win a bittei 

their half-starved music. Thewom . ^^^^^ ^^^^^^.^^^ 

meal with the sweetness^o ' ™-^ ^,i,, ,,,ty years of 
, scene of this kind ■ On« J" '= i,^ , ^y.,treet, 

,ge, with a *''^;":i;;':; J, a Lancashire song. It was 
singhig m a «««*' P^^ '*'" '^^ t.,nm\on. voice and downcast 
her first song m puUic , and "« t^«" ,^ ,„s very 

look, as she hugged with »«"°"^ ='f ,7 ' , .reatnre looked 
touching. When the song «- ™ ; ^« ^^\,„ „,a misealcu- 
round with a timid air the y^an^us,^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^. ^^^^^^. „f 

lated her strength-the occasi^on ^ J ^f tears.- 

eudurance-and she ^^^^ .^ui in slavery by a 
I see in that woman «>« l«^^<=';*/„i=, ,^.^,,,,^ to recognise 

selfish Toryism, ^l"*,^°"';\f ' = j, ,^„ fed and quiet. A 
another slavery m order to ^e p ts ow ._^^^ ^^^^ 

relieving officer m Stoekpo.t, says_ b ^^^^ ^^^^ ^ 

rooms of the English «P«f' ™^ .^'^^'^ JrLp, „ot had what 
mouthful of bread under the roof, ^^ ^^J ^^^^ ^,,,,,g, to 
you may call a meal the wliole '1''^-^^° ^^ ^^^^^ 

Lp on through the nighty J^^^^^^ 

resignedly as if theiew as eveiy PI ^ ^.,,ieh has 

morrow." These are subjects «' '^^^ thing, to mind the 
trained their bodies and souls to f^f^^ „w Suiting over 
brutifying monotony of «'-/-*";;; ^y a it lets arms and 
what it calls the fadure of a ~fj^;"„„.h one hand, and 

institution of Soup for slaves at home. 

* A Visit to the Cotton Districts, 1862, p. 4. 



Even this latter is grudgingly bestowed. Many of the richest 
mill-owners have not yet subscribed a farthing to the relief 
funds, so that it is a difficult matter to secure a shilling a head 
per week to the poor applicants. Yet who subscribed to the 
"Alabama?" Whose money fits out steamer after steamer with 
munitions to keep the life in Southern slavery ? What capital 
is it that buys Confederate bonds at eighty-four cents, and that 
is willing to take the risks of sea and a blockade to help in 
undermining the great Republic whose manifold prosperity it 
dreads ? Thank God, the elements of an American Thanks- 
giving, material and spiritual, are, and forever will be, beyond 
the reach of open levy or secret malice of its hearty haters. 

In Ashton-under-Lyne, whose population is 36,791, there are 
10,933 hands employed in cotton, representing a population of 
nearly 22,000. The existing means of relief reach only 9,000 
of these ; that is, there are more than 10,000 dependent on 
private charity, or their own resources. The 9,000 cost <£480 
per week. The mill-owners in this place have been disposed to 
help the operatives. Some of them have allowed their unem- 
ployed hands as much as two and sixpence a week, some lend 
them money, others maintain a daily distribution of food. 

In Preston the progress of the distress is shown by the fol- 
lowing figures : in August of this year the number of poor 
relieved by the rates was 12,205, and by the Public Relief 
Committee, 21,616 ; but in September the number had swelled 
to 14,289 relieved by the rates, and 23,932 by the Committee. 
" During the week ending September 13, the Relief Committee 
distributed 16,832 loaves, weighing 61,016 lbs.; 11,301 quarts 
of soup, and 4,820 quarts of coffee." There are seventy-one 
firms owning mills in Preston : of these, forty-eight contributed 
the pitiful sum of <£1,978 to a relief fund of X12,000. Yet 
there are 27,600 factory operatives whose actual financial loss 
per week amounts to more than ,£12,000. This happens every 
week, and one in every seven and a half of the entire popula- 
tion of Preston become entirely pauperized. To counterbalance 
this, forty-eight rich mill-owners contributed less than X2,000, 
not per week, but their definitive subscription for the year ! 

See how these poor men were obliged to take their money 
out of the savings banks. In the single tovm of Blackburn 



„ -iQcc to 1861, "bad risen from 
the animal deposits, Irom ^% .oaqoO" But what was 

tl,at sum to f^ir';;Z°\n wages, "and that amount >s uow 
1861, at l^-^'/f- »f °^^;„f £^2 000 per week." Duvuig s.x 
being increased a tl e ate o J^,^ ^^^^ t,,, ^,„t3 were 

months, down to last May &; J" ^hesc savings have 

£10,000 in excess of tl.o -- »1 -™" , ^ j^, t,,;,,,^ dad, but 
been all swallowed up by th.s tirne^ ^^^_^^^ g^,^ 

bearing evidence of ^^^^^;JZ'Z^^-^o.U not give it np ; 
tried to take it away. The do, """^ tradesman seeing 

tears." ,, -.-.ainful and toucliing 

I, the midst of tins «- --' ' ^/^ Boards of Guard- 
instances of which need ^^'>\^^'Z72lti^ called the " Labor 
ians h. many places have -f^^f^^^^'tle poaching of profes- 
Test," to protect the pansh ^-^^ f';™ J^^^^, ,„ excavation, 
sional paupers and vagabonds ^^''^"T roads, where every 

or provide work in ^^^ ^^^ ^^^ 1-' «« ^-^'f 
unemployed man must do In «hoi° reduced to labor 

These honest and ""f°''f>''*.Vf/!!™ants ragamuffins, gam- 
at these aimless tasks by the side "f ^S^^f ;\„°i,,,,Me dole of 
biers, " and corrupt old lu-kster o g t^ ^^^ 

parish bread. What a poisoned " ^^'^j^.tf^^ard children, 
'monarchy tosses jealously to her pl^f ™° ,,ieced her million 
who have woven, spun, '=^«\«''' 'l'*^' '" ie worid ! 
bales of goods, which stock the mar e o tt-ejo ^_^^ 

The resort to Indian cotton, winch '^^^^f ll^^ a,e pre- 
imperfectly cleaned, apP-- - ^ ZTZ.Zson report the 
vaiUng wretchedness. .0™;";^'; ; t„ tbe exhaustion 

most harrowing scenes in the f^"'"";^' °^ ^^^^ < eannot go on 
of the patience of the men and th wmiien w _ ^^^^^^^^ 

with their work, owing to constant ^^^^^^ ^„^^,,, break 



worry of such work is exhausting ; it depresses the physical 
energies and wears the heart. Some give up in despair, and 
leave the factory to beg or work on the moor or in the stone- 
yard ; others grow haggard or pale under the trial ; the strong 
men grow weak, — the weak, ill. The men curse, and the 
women sit down and cry bitterly. A manufacturer resident in 
Mancliester, who is by no means a tender-hearted gentleman, 
said, that instances of the kind were of daily occurrence in his 
factory, and that he had ceased to go into most of the rooms, 
' for the women were all crying over their work.' "* 

The London "Times" informs us, that from the first of Sep- 
tember to the twenty-fifth of October, the number of persons 
receiving parochial relief in all the cotton districts had increased 
by 68,456, and that there were in all 208,621. In addition to 
this, there are 143,870 persons wlio receive their aid from local 
committees. Total, 352,491. The weekly loss of wages is 
estimated at X136,094, and that amounts to ^7,000,000 a year. 
" Nor does this prodigious sum," says the " Times," " represent 
the whole loss incurred by these districts, for the ordinary 
receipts of a manufacturer must be such as to cover not only 
wages, but the expense of machinery, and the interest of capital 
sunk in buildings and land, besides a handsome profit." It is the 
loss of this handsome profit which, more than all the suffering of 
the men and women who used to earn it, inspires the "Times" 
to unroll its columns of appalling figures in the interest of inter- 
vention and Southern slavery. The loss of this profit, and the 
discomfort of having 400,000 fresh paupers added in one year 
to its list of vagabonds, is the only drawback to English satisfac- 
tion at seeing the great Republic shrivelling from loss of blood, 
and sinking from the menace of its former estate to insignifi- 
cance beneath debt, dismemberment, and national disgrace. 

But it reminds me of the principal cause for thanksgiving 
which we have to-day. In spreading before you a few facts in 
relation to the distress of the English workmen, my object was 
not only to contrast it with the substantial comfort which the 
institutions of a Democracy sustain, at the same time that it 
can wage war at the rate of $2,000,000 a day, and deaths and 

* Visit to the Cotton Districts, p. 75. 
2 



10 



. n. hnt to bring that rebellious aristocracy, 

thanks as to-day, when they -y'^:™; led to this death- 
whole history of their couutry ^ ^^ '^ ™ /;,, a,, ,,,„e civil 

.t„,,le ^f-Z:^i:^;iX7^.o^i ; an Aristocracy 
society as deceit and smceiuy ^ Democracy 

founded upon depnvmg men of natural r. , ^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^ 

founded upon ^^^-"ZtZ^X-^-^^ ^' !-»> ="'* ^"*' "" 
the issue is honestly and squaieiy measure 

onger hehind politics and --P— |, fdi^h ctly led, hy the 
of the past which expected to ti^ thas d y^^ ^,^^^^.^^^ 

logic of a God who cannot '--'^^^.Vi tendency, and bids 
situation, which tears the mask f' »"^ "'^^7 ^he first Revo- 
a good tendency assume its grand P 0P°^°"^^ ^^^^ean stock, 
mtionof '76wasonlyagratui»n 1 u,gged ^^^^^^^ 

founding a Republic. ..^tions that we were citizens 

How P--ture .... all ovu n t. - ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^. ^^ 

of an America. \\e ha^e Been ^^^.^^^ ^.^ ^^e 

_a Insty, passionate -f /"^f , ^es o^ ^^l'""^' ''°'""' 
.teppingnow,to the ri^^an^-.f ^^^^ ^^ ^,,^ 
cratic manhood, io snow .^ ^,^^ g^^er 

aay be the task of some -^^'^J^^l ,^,,, H into three 
and prudence of his life. He " „,,i;shment of the Constitu- 
epochs-the first comprising tte -J^^^^Xmi„, ^f the sla.e- 

tL, and the -'-^l^'''"* ,y^:e, the rights of man were the 
trade. This was the epoch J^']^^^';^ ,,ppe,ed to be a 
accepted ttieory of «ie ^^'olln slumbered after resisting 
self-limited disease, and tlie Jivtvui „„nther The second 

L aristocracy, till " -^ ^^^^l aiK pMU c"i story of the 
epoch will tell the great mateu^ X, ^fo^got the feeling of 
^■owth of slavery, in a generation w>d> . ^^^^ ^^^^^ 

the fathers from ^-^^''' ^''^jf^Zi a,,^s<iy<^s io vo^e. 
adroitly the new aristocratic ideas helped 



11 

with the country's great watchword — Democracy — by relating 
the successive encroachments of an unconstitutional tendency 
in the name of the Constitution, in each of which free-labor 
voted to extend and protect slave-labor, and our mother, with 
the Revolution's blood yet hallowing her starry garments, was 
scorned and almost turned out of her own children's house. 
This epoch, with its three sub-divisions of nullification, the 
territorial questions, and the reaction of Republicanism, will 
extend to the election of Abraham Lincoln. The third epoch 
will open with secession, and tell the story of the reappearance 
of the rights of man in the reawakening of the Revolution, 
when the Democrat and the Aristocrat see each other clearly at 
last, only a bayonet's length apart, as they did at Bunker's 
Hill- and Yorktown, And as it is just as impossible to write 
history without ideas as it is to make nations and epochs without 
them, so the idea of this history will be to show how provi- 
dential and inevitable was the rise of this aristocracy and the 
resistance of this democracy, with all the triumphs, disgraces, 
defeats and miseries of their irrepressible conflict, with all the 
accidents, treasons, indecisions and weaknesses of the people's 
war ; and that these things were for the sake of having a People 
at last to illustrate, uphold, and organize the rights of mankind, 
first for America, but no less for the world. It will be a history 
of two necessities born of two incompatible tendencies: the 
necessity of aristocracy born of slavery, and the necessity of 
democracy born of freedom. Those two necessities not only 
account for all that has happened, but show how nothing could 
have happened otherwise, not even military disappointments, 
delays and imbecilities ; how, in short, slavery would never 
have been destroyed by freedom in any other way, or upon other 
terms, or at any other period. 

We never believed this, and yet we see that it comes true, 
and every fresh bulletin confirms it ; for if, out of all the 
crowd of events which makes the history of a country, a few 
of them happened by chance alone, the whole series of events 
would be vitiated, and the divine intentions, if there are any 
such, would be spoiled. If even one event occurred by chance, 
that is, illogically, shoved in, or slovenly, like the dropping 
of a stitch, the splendid web which we call history would 



12 



slightest „>ove„.ents u. ^^^1 ^^ destroy it, 
whioh slavery makes is m being siavciy , tua 
buu te n'eantime it is consistent and fatal as oonsumpfou^ 
A^ God »eans that it shall be for -ns>ste,.y^ aLe, ^o 
, „ .1,0 ..poessitv of health and freedom. Iheicloie, we 
Tl find TaT t ere «as never a moment previons to the war 
^^fntteTCOuU have been overcome by freedom, and never 
:" t S the war. We return thanks for the presence 
of God in every disappointment of -r W 

■ "^T K::f2^o^"t:^vZ, slavery had just 
r„Snn"?to"nt freedom from destroying it, and n^ 

Sth enough to m-/-t;\"rbrrrtde"S 
rsf:;f:revrn«r:,::d shortlived, inmo^ 

'91 atd 'q-i only 733,044 /ounds of cotton were exported from 
Te « StatJs, a g'reat deal of '-j> ^ '^X^r el^ 
" "- .-™;f :X^ , „irr Id :ot ..ep .. arlstoc. 
rc;t^ - B"t the development of «- -tton-c;;^, has 
hel unchecked and regular ever since, <^-^^^"^l'l,%^Z 
of the embargo, 1808, and the three years of war 18U 13 and 
-14 In 1805, the value of the export was *-2,004'""^ ' ' 

\ I.,' I i'o8n,i9. nnd in 1860, It was %l\»,-i'M,voi- 

ihel'coti:: o'n^ eftt;ded1r:m the Mlantic to the Bio dd 
Tr., — ng the States and potior, of S-s ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 

. Before .he Kevohuion, „en,p and ... compete. -^ff^t^^^^Z 
ance. In a copy of ^-*«tLt-^'^/':::;\t\ee;'e ported from South 
i-- "MarchU.. »;'"'|;;; :: ,f ^rsur' I 17 feet I,,, and . inches 
Carolina .rnce Nov. 1 ^evera^ «.li. ^^^.^^ ^^^^,^^__ ^_^^^^^ 

diameter at the base. Tims hemp was / . ^^ In a copy of 

imported, and more pounds of hemp -«^.'-f ^^^V^^^lay voted by ye 
the Almanac for 17CG is another tte^ ' J^^J^^^^ Lards estahlishing a 
House of Commons of ye Province S. Carohna) il,0 ^^^^ 

Silk Filature in this town under "' ."";<='■"" "/^ „!o„„,<,„<,„, ha, made 
Plnckney of Belmont Plantation, wth.n four >" '- "^ ';^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^ b„,,. 
uear 60 bushels of Cocoons this season, wlueh are esteemed 



13 



North latitude." In this vast area of upwards of 450,000 square 
miles, nearly a third is adapted to the growing of cotton.* Here, 
if any where, was the development of a geographical party with 
sectional politics. But at the same period, in 1850, the value 
of the crop of Indian corn was $456,091,491 ; of wheat, 8156,- 
786,068 ; and of hay, $254,334,316.1 Cotton was smaller than 
each of these great staples, being only one hundred and eighteen 
millions. Why did no aristocracy spring from those enormous 
figures, whose growth is mainly Northern ? Because the men 
who owned the crops raised them, and therein lies the difference 
between a sectional party and the national life. 

At what period during this great development of the cotton 
staple would you have expected slavery to come to an end by 
the operation of natural laws ? We used to hear a good deal 
about letting slavery alone that it might die out. Why, the 
operation of natural laws was favorable to slavery — to the 
protection both of slaves and cotton. We might have expected 
to see Northern agriculture die out as soon. 

The abolition of the slave-trade, in 1808, which the South 
regarded at the time as a hostile measure, has proved immensely 
favorable to slavery. It was indeed the first act of positive 
legislation with a tendency to nourish and protect that institu- 
tion. For when annual cargoes of half-barbarous Africans are 
introduced into a country, local disturbances occur more 
frequently, the mortality among the slaves is greater, and their 
increase comparatively feeble. :j: The abolition of the trade gave 

* Andrews' Report on Colonial and Lake Trade. 1852. 

t These figures, taken from the Agricultural Report, 1861, vary from those 
wWch had been previously given in the Census for 1850. Of wheat alone, the 
two States of Pennsylvania and New York, raised of course more bushels than 
the aggregate of all the Southern and Middle Slave States. 

Jin 1714, the number of slaves was 55,850; and 30,000 of these had been 
brought from Africa. 

Between 1715 and 1750 there were imported 90,000 slaves. 

'♦ 1751 " 1760 " " " 35,000 " 

" 1761 " 1770 " " " 74,000 " 

" 1771 " 1790 " " " 34,000 " 

" 1790 " 1808 " " " 70,000 " 

These amount to 303,000 ; but the total number of native and imported slaves 

in 1808, was only 1,100,000, showing a feeble increase for a century. But from 

1808 to 1850 the number leaped to 3,204,373. The slave-ships always landed 

more men than women. 



u 



i. ^n„tllern slavery all those peculiarities which the masters 
are itTtoc™! patriarchal. Plantation life has rearec two 
"Lt. ons ot American slaves, in a climate comparat^dy 

S nt^ve excellenies .uulistnrhccl hy the -n.>^ re^ys 
of native vices which the slave-sh.p '™"SW; J^ 'ti^ 
,ava2e habits have dropped away from them. Det cnism 
ardSrpe'Lorship lingers only in a few places m M.ss>ss,pp., 
t°dperCta Louisiana, where tl>e slave-trade lasted longer. 
The nat^S religiousness ot the negro is more healtluly devel- 
^^d by lltthodi m and the Baptist sects, as in Jama.ca than 
r Carolicism, as in Hayti, or by the half-savage ntes of 
Africa When the "Wanderer," in 18.58, landed a cavg. of 
fve negroes on tl>e coast of Georgia, the better portion of t e 
Sonlhem press and people were alarmed and ujd.gnant ; many 
aSit< t,!e violation of law; the rest felt that >» wa. an nrfac 
tion of law which brought harm instead of benefit to the m tr 
r * A few mners were clamorous with approbation, but the 

mte infiueltraS ded their disgust at the sight of the sickly 
Td sit: cargo.. In l^^O it was calculated tha^iic^mor 
than eiglit or ten thousand ot originally impoited Africans weie 

'^'it''^' not long before the politics of the South rep— d 
its controlling interest, in the doctrine of State rights, the 
i Itei p"n ot the Constitution, the jealous safeguards thrown 
:^:i':dt:: property in man, the absolute necessity to e^ci^ach 
and domineer, to invent new compromises, to abolish old ones, 
totou" the atal tendency into the courts and every depart- 
m*t of government. The South never did a sing e act that 
dot st-ietly in harmony with the exigencies o i s^P— 
Tt h^d recovered from the amiable expectation of tlie latheis, 
rlvtry would disappear. 1?'^^.--** ^ ^ ": 
lie becan to prove slavery a divine mstitution. It was the 
colton c P whL sent Southerners to the Old Testament af er 
Id V ne smiction for slavery, and to the New, to applaud Paul 
or landing Onesimus to his master, ^^f-^^^-, Jeff- 
Lee, and Lowndes and Mason never cared to build a hed„e 

• See Charleston and Savannah papers ot that (late. 



15 

texts around the institution. If they thought there was no 
attribute of God that could take the part of the shiveholder, they 
woukl not dare to search their Bibles for slaveholding texts. 
But tl^eir sons of the next generation saw an undoubted law of 
God whitening all their fields with the cotton-bloom. Then the 
Bible texts Uecame pods that burst with the doctrines of Cal- 
houn and his descendants ; for men search the Scriptures to 
justify their interest as often as to control their passions * 

There was an anti-slavery party in Virginia as late as 1832. 
Worn out tobacco-fields helped it to chew the cud of bitter 
fancy, as it revolved the sentiments of Jefferson and Mason. An 
act of emancipation narrowly escaped passing the legislature of 
that State. Why did it not pass, if the prosecution of slave- 
labor was hostile to the interest of Virginia ? We have heard 
that the efforts of anti-slavery men in that State were paralyzed 
by the commencement of an anti-slavery agitation at the North. 
Slavery was just on the point of dying out, when the publica- 
tion of the "Liberator " infused a new and antagonistic life into 
its decrepit frame. How far men have to go for nothing, when 
their prejudices drive ! That publication heralded a great 
awakening of the republican tendency, but the Southern 
tendency was already pledged to its own laws and obedient to 
their direction ; a " Liberator " in every town and village of the 
North could have neither accelerated nor retarded the march of 
natural laws. Just look at the facts. In 1832, while the legis- 
lature of Virginia was discussing laws relative to emancipation, 
the slaves rose immensely in price. They should have fallen. 
The discussion itself was in consequence of their being worth so 
little. Why did they rise ? Did slaveholders give three or four 
times as much for able-bodied negroes, against their own 
interest, and to spite the "Liberator" ? It was the increasing 
demand for slaves, the growing activity of the internal slave- 
trade, the imperious necessity of slave labor, the prospect of new 
territory and an expansion of the cotton zone, that caused the 

* Descoiirtilz, a French Naturalist, was in Charleston in 1798, and heard a 
Quaker declaiming in the square, to quite a gathering of people, against the 
enormity of separating and selling some slaves who were exposed there on a 
platform. The sale went on, and so did the Quaker. But the snake had a full 
equipment of rattles by the time of Mr. Hoar's mission. 



16 



•+ ^ii"* Thp savao'e mstmct oi sia^ei^ ui>ii 

Z exmasion, and stuck at nothing to attam >t end. O ly 
tolToncan'ueed and pacjfy such V^^^^J-^^J^^ 
come to the ground until its '''"f ^''°<=^ ' ,,J'" ~r=f,„„/the 

Z: hiUs, Kansa^-Ne-- j;;;^-- ;; — .1 ruffian- 

ism Ostend conferences, aUibusteusm, w 

which armed -'* ^°"f l^^^^^^TXery was a system which 

.„. r now dashmg "--; ^^-^/^^ t^^^^^^^^ 

re—rle sLl Uer . e..-Oim -o^; - 

lust, his pride, his 1»«««V'" '\ eu^loys all his gits to 
his pocket. It invigorates h.s arm, --^J^f^^^, fiberty. 
enforce the extremity of its passion "8^;°;* * J'^^^^.t when 
The moment when slavery can be arrested is the mom 
it bleeds to death, and not before. 

twenty years the pro„,ine„t ,„en -"^ ^^^'^'J *';^,„,^ ,„ offer. The vitriol 
.ervative advice which >'» <"" ''""'X, w ™ tot L^-l ""''""^ "''"" ""' '° 
dashed into the face ot the »"°1"7°'=' ^f g'^ ^„„ exigency was long ago 
asperse the genteelest ''■"»"""'"';■ ..^"!ji,o„. For specunens ot rhetoric 
betrayed hy the passionate tone ot able ed.tor^^ __ ;,,„,„„_„ igjj, -The 
hitherto nnequalled at the Nor h, - 1>» ^ 'hmon ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^ 

Paramonn. Question;" March 7 and Jl, lSo4, M»y 
a Swindler-," July i. 185* i October 16, 1S5., 



17 

What moment of the past would you select no^y, upon delibe- 
rate afterthought, when, if things had turned out differently, 
you can imagine that the Southern tendency would have been 
checked ? When great natural elements are at their work of 
making history, things happen naturally, and could never 
happen differently ; they express with mathematical accuracy 
the state of the elements. To suppose a change in the circum- 
stances you must previously suppose a change in the forces that 
are at work, including the mental and spiritual condition of the 
people. Sometimes men speculate that if the events of a period 
had been different the results would have been different."* 
There is but little virtue in that " If," for an event, liy occur- 
ring, shows that it could not have been different. Events are 
always the products of all the forces at the period of their occur- 
rence. While one force checks, and another force propels, still 
another must lie dormant, and others do little but appear upon 
the field. And masses of men are but the embodiments of the 
forces, which they help at every moment to create, and which 
illustrate their period. It is as absurd to wonder what would 
have happened if William the Conqueror had not invaded 
England, or Washington had not organized the spirit of '76, or if 
Daniel Webster had made a different speech on the 7th of March, 
1850, or if Fremont had been elected President six years ago, or if 
Buchanan had garrisoned the Southern forts, as to wonder what 
the movements of the solar system would have been if the 
planets had no moons, or if the sun were half its present bulk. 
The good and ill of history combine to repeat the wondrous tale 
of the divine necessities. England was invaded, Washington 
arose, Webster fell back before advancing slavery, Fremont 
lacked three hundred thousand votes, and Buchanan loaded the 
first gun and trained it on Fort Sumter, from combinations and 
foregoing influences and momentary moods that expressed 
themselves thus, in scorn of all ifs and buts, and leaving the 
future to explain them. Even the disgraceful things which men 
do at critical moments are nice expressions of an evil tendency, 
show how far it is disposed to go at every point where a good 
tendency does not yet suffice, and are the unconscious menials 

* See, for instance, Niebuhr's Lectures, ii. 59. 



18 



of goodness. The vices of men finisk up a great deal of 
.pnvenffer-work in tlie liouselieeping oi tiod. 

B^mTnlany political moment of the pa.t thirty years when 
if teZZiZl a united and indignant North, you thn,k tha 
tL eer ofslavery would have heen checked and you w.ll 
the caieer oi j supposition. Such a 

find nottang out of ^^h ch *» '"=^^ ^ ^^ .^^^ „f ti„e 

North was an impossibility. Examine tnc same i 
forte moment when the natural decay of f^^^fl^J' 
,»„cr.d and vou will find that the natural growth ot slavery 
commenced, ana jouw. Republican party 

forbade that supposition also J' >«" » ,„ve y was hemmed 
triumnhed in 1860, its leaders thought that slaveiy 

:;eri::sri=:ri:e iterated «. 10,0. 

r^s olslaveiy, and overrated the vitality of ..H^.^^^^^^ 
The triumnh of the latter was a moment most dangeious loi 
^S dercU. because the ^-^:^:S^-^ 

::ititrbt:r;::rtiir^^^^^^^^^ 

;ot to boil. Any Secretary of State might keep f 6 - 
L with old speeches that were ^^Tf^Z^f^r.. 
abstractions, init served at last ^-If'^J'^^'^^,,,,,,, had 
Aftpr the wt had boiled itself diy, ana icpuLi 
;' elled ill up inside and scorched sadly *» the l.o^om^ t 
would have been lifted off the political crane, and a "ew demo 
Ilic pot hung ill its place, with the South ^^^l^^:^ 

fire of cotton-waste and '^^g--' ^" ^te tt e tnrely Esau of 
stir the new pottage of compromise f" * f^ '^^^^^^ „„t ,„iy 
liberty. It was a dangerous and almost fata momen , 

Lcaie the North was disposed to lie ^'^^21 
large portion of the South was disposed i^o wait tor t 
in its favor which would have certainly ''^^ J' f ;,^.^„„„,. 
slavery is stronger than the ^^^'^'^^^ ^J^^Zl l^:^.y 
than the North. And there is ^l^^^^ ^^^'^tj^^^grve pru- 
comes to its focus of white ';"* t"^ .^^rra^'pLe 

dential eo'^'^l"''^'.'""' ''"'I "" /X ..hrmioh every restraint to 
where a domineering passion breaks tin ou„n e y „ jj,,^ 
ravish its object. The focus of slavery was in South Caiohna. 



19 

Every channel in her body sent the black blood rushing to her 
brain, and congested it with fatal suggestions. How plain it is 
now that the temporizing policy, which was always the trait of 
half-living republicanism, was the instrument in the hands of 
Mr. Buchanan to conjure liberty out of republicanism, decision 
out of uncertainty, and draw the bolt out of the gates of the 
great North-wind. History will return thanks that the Southern 
forts were left without their garrisons, seeing that God meant to 
garrison them with liberty. At first it seems clear that there 
was a moment when the whole Revolution was in the power of a 
few hundred men to be judiciously posted where slavery under- 
stood itself the best, and was throbbing with evil purposes. Xo, 
we do wrong to say there was such a moment. If such a 
moment had been essential or possible, it would have become 
actual. But the strength of slavery appeared just as much in 
the weakness of Mr. Buchanan as in the determination of 
Jefferson Davis; it was against the divine logic that a few 
hundred men should tear a glorious page of history. 

Seeds are not ready to germinate in April, but after the first 
thunder how they swell and burst their flinty husks and send 
up shoots like sword-blades over all the soil! Liberty was 
waiting for the thunder. The awful-looking cloud that blotted 
out half her sky and the stars which ought to shine there, 
gathered and gloomed continually, rolling in upon itself as if 
to concentrate and fiercely hearten, till the passion that red- 
dened its great edges could not bide there another moment, and 
forth it sprung. The lightning was neither premature nor 
disastrous. It subserved the needs of liberty, which had lain 
frost-bound through a long northern winter, waiting for a genial 
hour. 

But green shoots do not make a harvest. There is never a 
moment in the summer when the corn might stop growing, with 
the delusion that it was ready to furnish food for man. AVhat 
moment would you select to break off your corn-tops, expecting 
to leave full ears upon the stumps to ripen in the sun, — when the 
joints send forth their ribands, or when the mealy tassels come, 
or when the first silk is spun out of the future husk ? Sum- 
mer's sun is a growing sun, fierce and almost intolerable. 
Autumn points with long shadows to the ripening hours. 



20 ' 

Was the corn ripe in the early July sun of the first Manassas ; 
was it ripe at New Orleans, or ready to be picked at Shiloh . 
Was it mildewed at Ball's Bluff, or blasted on the Pemnsula, or 
did the husbandry of Cxod come to nought in the sunless and 
chilly days of the second Manassas ? 

You cannot mention a single moment in this thunderous 
war-summer when liberty could have found her crop. If the 
war had closed with early successes, the cause of the war would 
have been preserved. Every mistake that we have made, 
especially the mistake of underrating the power of slavery, 
every lukewarm general who has been commissioned for the 
field every traitor in the cabinet or the camp, every check 
experienced by our arms, every example of mediocrity holding 
critical command, has precisely represented our immature and 
growing condition, and was its logical necessity. 

Beauregard hammering at Sumter nailed a flag to the mast 
in every village of the North. But though a Republic ran up 
all its bunting and had none to spare, it was not till summer 
and winter had weather-stained those brave flags and almost 
fretted them from the poles, that they began to signalize the 
rio-hts of man to every portion of the/3vintry, and to stream 
like a torn aurora with true American influence from the lakes 
to the gulf. Death and sorrow pry up the lids of the heaviest 
sleepers ; we are all awake now ; but when General Banks said 
to the North, "Raise 600,000 men and hold the South as a 
conquered province till she is regenerated," we were astonished 
at his exaggeration. And when, still later. General Fremont 
said, "The strength of slavery is in slave-labor, and the sinews 
of war are concealed beneath black skins," the North shuddered 
at the bold invasion of property in man, and was not prepared 
to see the country itself the sole owner of its men and women. 
So that if a Wellington had gained a complete and subjugating 
victory at any of the points where we fondly expected one, he 
would have subjugated liberty, and clapped the North again into 
the harness of compromises and adjustments. The dreariest 
moments have seemed to me the lightest, because I heard the 
corn filling with milk under the shadow of the cloud, ihe 
bloodiest days have yielded the finest growing weather to 
liberty. 



21 

" Then," you say to me, " you do not care for the loss of men 
and the anguish of women ? Your liberty is a hyena which 
snatches a loathsome feast from lost fields of battle ? " No 
more than she was when AYashington seized her hand as he 
retreated, and nourished her in his winter-tent upon the gloom 
and foreboding of America. No — I am so little careless about 
the blood which has been shed, that I want to see for what use 
it has gone forever out of the dear hearts of Northern homes. 
It is not enough for me that you repeat the hackneyed senti- 
ment that it is beautiful to die for one's country. There must 
be use as well as beauty, or there is no such thing as a country 
to die for. Things that are useful lay the corner-stones of a 
great Commonwealth, and build the shafts around which beauties 
cluster. If you wish to see the men who care nothing for the 
blood of your kindred, look at those who shout how beautiful it 
is to die to keep the cause of death alive, the men who could 
stretch a hand to slavery across three hundred thousand graves, 
with a welcome back into a country full of the widows and 
orphans she has made. We thank God that His thoughts are 
not as such thoughts. A balance in His hand has held a scale 
weighted with the glorious truths of this Republic ; into it He 
has thrown free-lab'or, knowledge, art and beauty, the common 
school, the pulpit and the plough, all of these moulded into 
liberty in the shape of a winged victory. Into the other scale 
the lacerated days of two campaigns have dripped with blood ; 
every precious drop has been marked by that unslumbering 
eye to be heavy with New England and "Western homes, and 
rich with privileges dearly bought ; the scale sinks slowly — they 
are almost even — the winged victory rises to its equivalent of 
blood. 

And what thought of the most ardent worshipper of the liberty 
that costs so much can embrace the future which waits at the 
outposts of this emancipating war ! After every field-battery 
has rolled away into the distance of peace, and the bayonet 
hides a strange blush within its sheath, and the last tent is 
folded, that future shall step from grave to grave, bringing new 
life, new duties, great trials and appropriate joys into the heart 
of America. Nations who have been astonished to see how a 
free people can organize war by sea and land, will admire its 



22 

greater victories over the embarrassments and trials which must 
still dispute its path to the highest glory. 

When peace returns, it will prove to be a heavy assessor of 
our common sense and patience. The problem of self-govern- 
ment will include the governing and rearing of four millions of 
people, richly endowed with affection, veneratioji and docility, 
but ignorant and awkward, superstitious, full of childish tricks, 
and unconscious of the duties of a freeman. Their feeble 
ambition has been hitherto one of the advantages of the slave- 
holder in perpetuating their servile state. But it is also 
fostered by the tone of religious instruction among their own 
preachers, who represent and confirm the gentle tendencies of 
the African. Mr. Pierce describes, in his first report to Secre- 
tary Chase, a sermon which he heard at Port Royal, from the 
text, "Blessed are the meek." The slaveholder may well 
tremble for his acres when he recalls the promise of that text. 
It was characteristic of the American slave that the preacher 
urged upon his hearers not to try to be " stout-minded." How 
congenial this advice is to the average negro is shown by the 
infrequency and feebleness of all insurrectionary movements. It 
was not possible for the slave to organize a formidable insurrection 
while the South was in full strength, nor will he ever be disposed 
to hazard the attempt, except, perhaps, in case the Proclama- 
tion of Emancipation is recalled, or hampered with gradualism, 
or local efforts are made to reestablish or continue the status 
of slavery. Then their scattered condition and the geography 
of the country would be less unfavorable to a successful rising 
than the slave's inborn predisposition for bloodless and pacific 
ways. Not that the negro dreads death : his mobile and flutter- 
ing imagination becomes fixed in the presence of a real danger. 
He is impassive or frenzied, and will charge up to the very 
mouths of cannon and coil about them. He is singularly cool 
to meet wliat he cannot avoid, but night-fears and fancied 
terrors make a child of him. The threat of a novel mode of 
torture is too much for him. It is imagination only that makes 
a coward of a negro. 

If the Proclamation wins, we shall find among the slaves a 
general deference to the plans of Government for confirming 
their freedom, to make it useful to themselves and to the 
country. 



23 

And mixed with these four millions of children are the poor 
whites, a great horde of immature and stupid boys instead 
of men, who never sat at the forms of liberty nor worked out 
one of her sums. The North must call its master-builders 
together, and those whose business it is to raise and trans- 
po!'t habitations, for the primary school-house must be shifted 
South, and in the little wake which it creates the people's 
chapels must follow, till along that highway of our God, the 
court and the jury, the ballot-box and printing-press can safely 
pass to disinfect all half-civilized neighborhoods. And wherever 
a plough can run, the power-wheel shall follow, and its band 
shall turn new wants and enterprises, and hum worthy ambi- 
tions into ears that have been tuned only to slavery's lash. And 
the great turbine shall go down to put to perpetual labor the 
streams that have carried so much of our blood into the sea. 
Everywhere the North shall take its revenge, deep, thorough, to 
the uttermost farthing, by imposing all the firm and gentle arts 
of liberty, with the uplifted ferule of the school-master, at the 
edges of reaping-blades, and beneath the weight of every 
material and mental instrument that can crush clods, pulverize 
a soil, and scatter seed. 

There will be a new meaning for the phrase " a geographical 
party," for the new Union will circulate by all the great chan- 
nels of internal navigation, arteries which God opened for 
distributing the red blood of an undivided heart. Geography 
itself, with mountains, streams, lakes, prairies and defiles, shall 
write a people's creed ; and all platforms, whether made at 
Buffalo, Chicago, Baltimore or Charleston, shall be supplanted 
by the square miles of the national domain. And it seems as if 
nature, foreseeing that not cotton but man would be khig of this 
domain, had sealed up craters, cleared out earthquakes, warned 
off the hurricane, and spread a firm soil for every product, from 
kitchen comforts to sovereign luxuries— a zone for the orange 
and the fig, a zone for cotton, rice and sugar, for flax, for wool, 
for wheat, for cattle ; districts for grapes, for the silk-worm and 
the cochineal, so that the democrat can dress for dinner and 
dine in his own house, if he will ; and when he wants to ship his 
surplus to feed and clothe the English pauper, every spar that 
the wind can stretch without breaking grows, from the live oak 



24 

to the mountain pine. Florida and Georgia will lay the ribs 
and knees, North Carolina will careen and caulk the democrat's 
vessel, Lake Superior mines will bolt and sheathe it, Maine will 
send its suit of spars, and Kentucky strain them with her hemp. 
Pennsylvania shall build the boiler and feed the fires beneath it, 
and the Great West shall victual New England sailors as they 
go floating round the world with a cargo of Eights, Intelligence 
and Freedom, samples of the failure of a Democracy. 

What a house this is to build, furnish and stock with com- 
forts, to set wide open to starving spinners and weavers, colliers, 
peat-burners, all the landless and the hopeless, where they can 
come to hear our mother's daily lessons of thrift, usefulness and 
the true dignity of man, as she goes in and out of all her rooms, 
cleanly, cheerily, helpfully, with hands whose touch is order, 
with a shape whose noble lines are full of grace, with a counte- 
nance that can leap from serenity to power, and unchain pure 
lightnings at those eyes. She is the mother of us all. Thanks- 
giving America, divorced from hideous wedlock with slavery, all 
her beauty coming back to her, all her gifts enhanced, and with 
a deeper meaning in her face than ever when she bids all her 
children again to the glittering board which she spreads between 
the Atlantic and Pacific seas. 



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